Synopsis of organismic theory.

Abstract The theory developed over a number of years by this author is here surveyed in a concise form, there being a sequence of definitions, assumptions and propositions, with connecting and explanatory text. Organismic theory is not identical with biological theory; it is a formal scheme prerequisite to any such theory. It inquires into the possible modes of behavior of inhomogeneous systems insofar as they may differ from the behavior of the macroscopic homogeneous systems usually considered in physics and chemistry. While assuming the unqualified validity of the laws of quantum physics in the organism, it deals with the novel methods of analysis required to take into account the tremendous complexity and inhomogeneity which is found in organisms but in no comparable degree in the inorganic world. In the course of the preparation of this summary we believe, moreover, to have achieved a substantial clarification and simplification of some of the concepts developed earlier.